At the moment i brew out primary in open frementation and then rack off at 1/2grav or so to sealed vessel to brew out, in doing this i prevent my crop and cold trub from dropping through my beer. It has become necessary (????) to upgrade to 15gals ( 60ltr) and as such i will only be able to use one vessel due to the impraticalities of shifting that amount of fluid. As most of you brew out in glass carboys you may already have solutions to my question. I use a counterflow chiller ( finally mnade one) and am forced to collect the trub etc. Do you find any noticeable difference if this drops through??? how do you skim off your crop if using carboys??? Do you worry? Conicals (AAAH those S.steel conicals!!) are designed for this, I take it that precautions are taken to ensure a totally clean crop. When i first started brewing i just sealed off and that was that till bottling, I learnt that the process could be refined over and over which is why i transfer. Interested in all your techniques/ slants on this process. Oh and before anyone suggests i live in AUstralia and the Aus dollar is worth very few of your rich American dollars so purchasing a conical is out of the question, especially those really nice S.steel ones on Morebeer . com

Froach, you crazy open fermenter, you.
Personally I do two closed fermentations (except on rare high gravity occasions when I do three). I do a good cold break allowing the wort to sit for 30 - 45 minutes in a sealed container after chilling and before pitching.
I then rack into primary off of the break, aerate and pitch.
As always, sanitize, sanitize, sanitize.
Seems to work for me.
Cheers!

I guess open ferment in a desert is o.k. try that in a moist eviroment. I use a plastic 5gal.bucket with a valve at the bottom for primary($14.00u.s). You can do this with larger food grade containers and maybe plastic is your answer. I can "drop the beer" out from under the kraeusen into a secondary carboy leaving almost everything on the bottom behind also. Talk about clean tasting. No skimming, no trub, no exsposure.... Blah,blah,blah.

Just wondering what a "cold break" is, and why do you do this? I am assuming this removes unwanted junk from the wort prior to fermenting, thus giving better flavour. I am trying to eradicate an underlying (barely there) musty type flavour from my brew. Would your technique help? Also, what is your aeration technique?

>>I am assuming this removes unwanted junk from the wort prior to fermenting, thus giving better flavour.<<
Exactly. I just chill my wort (immersion chiller) and siphon (no sucking!) into a sanitized carboy where it sits until the trub has settled out a bit. Then it gets siphoned off of that into a second carboy.
I aerate with pure oxygen from Home Depot through an inline filter and a two micron aeration stone (from my local HBS) for about 60 seconds.
Then in goes my yeast starter. I almost always make a 600-800ml starter for smaller beer and 1500ml for big beers.
Not sure if any of this will address the issue you're talking about -- perhaps you should send a case or two for sampling, experimentation and general guzzling. Cheers,
Ollie

Less than a year ago, myself and another member of my brewclub purchased 15 gallon HD polyethelene conical fermentors. We have had such great success that we recently purchased another (mini-brew makes them for $200). The advantages are as follows; 1) The removable lid offers full access for skimming surface trub before it falls 2) The two valve system, with one at the bottom of the cone and one about "1 gallon" up from the bottom allows you to drain trub & yeast from the bottom (after primary fermentation), and "rack" from the top valve, leaving the marginal 1 gallon behind (for a 10gal batch, we actually brew 11.5 to account for this waste). 3) The design allows you to fill the fermentor from your brewpot or CF chiller directly through the bottom valve, minimizing exposure at the critical point of brewing.

The only disadvantages; 1) The lid is not airtight, which theoretically could present problems (but hasn't). I think that clever utilization of a large O-ring could produce an airtight seal if one felt compelled. 2) Plastic is not stainless steel or glass. It's been argued that lighter beers may feature "plasticide" aroma & flavor, although I have never perceived this defect in any of our beers. Advertisments for this type of vessel claim that they are used in yeast labs and pilot brewing facilities.

Heres the other problem...$200. But in my research, I found that several industrial plastic suppliers sell these tanks for less that $100. If you could build your own stand, scrounge up some valves, etc, you could build your own. I almost did, but it just so happened that at the time I more money that free time (funny how that works). Try "Consolidated Plastics" as a starting point, I'm pretty sure that they have a website.